


0.8 | The Cell

by hummingbear



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Alone, Confusing, Crying, Dark, Dreaming, Dreams and Nightmares, Future, Gen, Help, Horror, How Do I Tag, Human, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Isolation, I’m sorry, Loss, Manipulation, Pain, Panic, Past, Protectiveness, Relationship(s), Sad, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Team, Torture, Tragedy, Trapped, Trauma, Violence, Without giving too much away, because i guess i have a very basic idea about this, but i dont know how to tag it right now, enjoyyyyyyyy :3, i dont even know, kind of, possibly, so i guess i won't lol, this is as much a surprise to me as it is to you, this sort of thing is kind of a running theme with them all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 03:13:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14782575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hummingbear/pseuds/hummingbear
Summary: The lights flicker on.Air burns.Vision fades.The room turns quickly dark.The lights flicker off.





	0.8 | The Cell

**Author's Note:**

> here’s another one, in the extremely random order of whatever all (most) of my ‘works’ are atm...
> 
>  
> 
> music, should you choose to use it:
> 
>  
> 
> if you wait- london grammar  
> insomnia (monster mix)- faithless  
> cola- camelphat & elderbrook
> 
> (so I don’t know if you can tell. but I’m lost for music with this one ha. suggestions are welcome :))) )

The lights flicker on.

His eyes blink open all of a sudden, the alien darkness of sleep gone without a warning. Harsh, white chemical light prompts his eyes to ache and burn, adjusting to his barren surroundings with a blurry protest. His focus fades in and out, vision failing before regaining its grasp on reality with slippery hands, and he finds himself staring up at a glowing ceiling, illuminated with the artificial light that first pierced through the thin tissue barrier of his eyelids and forced them open.

He finds his feet relatively quickly, using his hands to push himself up from the untidy, splayed position he’s been in on the floor. He holds his arms out for balance, expecting to be unsteady in his dizzying state. He finds the motion unnecessary. His body adjusts much faster than he expects it to. Instead, he begins to turn slowly in his place at the centre of small room to survey his surroundings.

He stands, isolated, in cell-like room, encased by walls of concrete and a floor and ceiling glowing with white light. It’s almost as if he’s floating above the surface, as the illuminated dust particles swirling around his boots in slow, sweeping motions make the floor seem like a cloud of sorts. His breathing is slow and shallow, calm and collected, for despite being seemingly trapped within a room with an unsettling absence of windows, doors, or any other viable escape, the atmosphere it carries is one of reassurance and tranquility.

His mind seems eerily at ease, and though he feels that he should question this odd sense of calm, the intense waves washing those thoughts away carry that sensibility with them. It’s almost as if he can hear them: the sea, crashing against the white cliffs providing the only border between the earth and the water. Sea spray flung carelessly at the silver rock, spitting and hissing and rushing, following the motions of the dancing winds. He only realises he’d closed his eyes when they open once again to the empty silence.

He doesn't know what to do. His begs his mind to allow himself to think, to work out a plan of escape, but his brain refuses to cooperate, finally having somewhere to feel weightless and without the burden of responsibility, the burning need to survive. He wants his instincts to awaken and save him. His body betrays him. The quiet feels wrong, like he's being lulled into a false sense of security by the melodic silence.

The lack of noise is music to his ears. The lack of escape taunts him. At least, it feels as if he has no way to leave, not that his body wants to, until his ears register the alarming sound of something hissing from behind him. Now his senses are on alert, and he spins on his heels into a balanced, sturdy stance facing the direction from where the warning noise is coming. Three even cracks appear in the wall behind him and begin to widen, spilling out light as they stretch and join one another to form a rectangular shape. The light quickly dissipates, leaving behind a door with a thin slat at its base.

Cautiously, he moves towards it, each step tender and alert. His eyes remain trained on the slat. The sudden banging against the panel catches him off guard. He skitters backwards, finding himself crouched on the floor and bouncing on his heels to keep his weight evenly balanced. He’s poised, ready to run, though he doesn’t know where to, and despite his alarm, the drowsiness bestowed upon him by this room keeps his body relatively docile and frustratingly unresponsive. It’s as if he’s been tranquillised. The thought etches a frown into his forehead.

The jangling metal panel slides open, though he sees nothing through it but the blinding white light that seems to haunt wherever it is he is. Still in position, he inches forward, until an elliptical metal platter slides through it, the panel shutting with a clang behind it. The silver slider sits at his feet immovably. A single colourful pill lies at its centre.

Uneasiness begins to pool in his gut. The little capsule seems menacing in its obnoxiously bold colouring, the red and yellow halves working in tangent to deliver him sinister ideas while he stares it down with apprehension written all over his face. He has no idea what this tiny little thing could do to him, and though he isn’t eager to figure it out, he feels a wrangling urge tugging at the back of his head to swallow it dry.

As if magnetised, his fingers twitch as they drift towards it, transfixed by the pretty colours that somehow keep him from questioning its appearance. Now, it rest in the palm of his hand. He admires it’s glossy surface, eyes glued to it as if analysing the capsule will tell him what’s inside of it. He settles the pill on his tongue in a trance-like state, movements slow and simple, eyes glassy with fascination.

And it isn’t until the bitter taste of a nameless powder assaults his tongue does the sick feeling in his stomach return. He gags, spitting the poisonous substance on to the floor and crushing it with him boot where it lies. White powder hits the floor, only visible against the light as it rises into the air and joins the dust in its rolling waltz around his legs. He can’t get the taste of the vile substance off of his tongue; it sticks like glue to the roof of his mouth and tongue. He wishes there was somewhere to scrape it off, keep it from seeping through the layers of his skin and into his system. For now, there is none. But what little of the substance escaped clearly isn’t enough to have a noticeable effect on him.

He falls back from his standing position, weight balanced on the balls of his feet until he shifts it back so his only his heels again, eventually finding himself leaning back onto the floor, with his eyes closed, unable to explain any of what’s happening to him.

Where is he?

 

 

He remains still for a number of minutes. Maybe less. The room has no relevance to time, he feels. It’s almost frozen, or has just been moving really slowly. Perhaps it’s the general timidity of the cell, despite the bitter drug that could’ve done anything him, had his body not rejected it at the general sense of it being wrong. His instincts are active in some way, at least, and his body isn’t as dormant as he thought.

Everything seems to be calming down to its previous undisturbed peace, serenity feeling it’s way through his veins. That is, until a grating, metallic scraping rattles him out of his stupor. This time, the noise echoes throughout the room, carried on the currents of silence towards his sensitive ears. It’s sudden, and his nerves are alight again with the possible threat, though this way he doesn’t know where to turn. This, however, turns out not to matter, as in each of the walls, including the one where the door has now ceased to exist once again, a vent grid to a ventilation shaft of some kind reveals itself from the previously undisturbed concrete surface.

He’s back on his feet again in no time at all, body jumping into action before his mind can catch up to its erratic movements. He’s spinning, trying to catch a view of these vents as they open, the sound they make rattling his bones, making him want to shield his ears from the auditory assault. His questions don’t last much longer.

The hiss of gas filtering through machinery jolts him, and soon his pulse is as erratic as his sudden reactions to the sirens bouncing through his mind. In a state of panic, he can do nothing but watch while the hazy mist of sleep, suffocation, death- anything- fills the room like water in a tank. Soon he won’t be able to breathe, and the thought sends his lungs into overdrive while the largely unsteady rate of his breathing becomes loud and laboured. He falls to the floor, feeling weak and brittle, gasping for air, for the oxygen absent from the chemical compound entering in through the vents in the walls.

His vision blurs.

He takes a deep breath in. His lungs sting with pain, ache from pressure.

The very air that keeps him alive is strangling him.

Soon, his body feels like with any further breath, it’ll burst.

Air burns.

Vision fades.

The room turns quickly dark.

 

 

The lights flicker off.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> I’m sure that, in keeping with my usual stuff, this was just confusing enough to be something I’ve written...
> 
> I hope it was both intelligible and hooking enough...
> 
> thank again! (I appreciate feedback, one of those reasons being that it makes me feel better when I know people actually see my writings so thanks again <3)


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